Will to Live
by aimsknight06
Summary: Directly inspired by user Zbluez: /s/10264082/19/What-Doesn-t-Kill-You. Exploring Kakashi's death wish. OCs present. Very impromptu and rated T for language and bloody moments. Also a lot of medical jargon
1. Deathbound

Terushi Daoko stood before the young, acclaimed white fang. Her wavy, peach colored hair was short cut, with the back tied in a short knot. From her tall height, you would have guessed her to be healthy and twenty, and you would be right. The anbu uniform contrasted against her fair skin but complemented her dark eyes, which stared out coldly behind spectacles. From her side, alongside the normal gear, was her anbu mask, depicting a monkey's face in black and red ink.

Sagari Arai was a shorter man, much shorter. His black, flat hair was rather long for a man, reaching down to his earlobe. There was an air of dependence from him. Perhaps it was to be expected. He was the healer of the ad hoc unit after all, and Kakashi had never seen his newbie face around before. What a pleading demeanor. He looked out of place with his cat anbu mask askew on his head.

And then there was him, the acclaimed white fang… his son, anyway. Son of a disgraced war hero. The same son taught by Minato, who was tutored by the legendary sage of the Sannin, Jiraya. A young anbu black op he was, but he'd handled more dangerous missions than a lot of the old timers. As a kid, he'd brutally slaughtered ninjas from the nation of earth while the war was underway. He tossed aside one of his teammates to get the job done.

Then there was the ultra-top-secret mission this kid undertook. Long story short, he ended up murdering his remaining teammate: some girl named Rin who was unlucky enough to become the vessel of a tailed beast. No doubt about it, he ran her through with his signature lightning technique and plunged his hand into her heart, slicing her chest open and ending her instantly. Was it savagery or mercy? It's all the same to Danzo, just as long as you get the work done.

After that, people just about called him flat out by his old man's address. Danzo was more than happy to load him with tougher work, and he was almost too eager to accept. Maybe eager is the wrong word. It was more like he resigned himself to it. Time and time again, he brushed with danger, and time and time again, he'd get placed in some new temporary unit for some suicide mission. He just kept cutting through that work, through the loss of members, and surviving.

No one would have figured how much killing Rin broke him. Like a mannequin on its last strings, he'd fought with losing Obito. He thought that as long as he could keep that promise…

But he couldn't. He was worse than garbage. Protect Rin? He ended up fucking ending her with his own hands. Since then, he hadn't even been able to draw out the lightning blade anymore. What was the point?

There simply wasn't any. Not to go on. Not for anything.

Minato had some kind words, but that didn't matter. It was like using cork from a wine bottle to patch a dam. The wounds were too big. He just threw himself in resignation to work, to death. He wanted Danzo to be the one to send him to his grave, so he didn't have to face the responsibility. How the samurai committed their rituals of honorable suicide is beyond all ninja.

But time and time again, he kept surviving like a dog. He clung to every bit of combat skill he had and kept evading that feeling of impending doom when he wanted nothing more than to embrace it wholly. It was those next to him who were casualties, and he eventually stopped feeling for them, much less remember their faces.

He was determined to die in combat, to just throw it all away. The proud hound he was had been crippled a long time ago.

These two before him, his new teammates, barely registered as Danzo listed and droned about the details of this new, important mission. Like an incoherent buzz, the words filtered in a trickle so only a few actually reached his brain.

"… Rogue… Sannin… kill… sight…"

He felt his voice speak in acceptance, like a reflexive motion without thought. Yes, that's right, don't think. Don't think about another of these mornings, waking up to face that countenance of failure in the mirror… another morning where he didn't want to be.

The other two echoed his assent. Danzo made a wave with his hand and sent them off.

This time perhaps, the young Kakashi thought, I'll get to see Rin and Obito again.


	2. Death

The forest was utterly quiet. They had made amazing speed in just four days, not dallying or complaining about fatigue and lack of sleep. Arai held up unexpectedly well despite how he initially appeared. Under that dependent aura was some resilience. But that's nothing special. You didn't become anbu by rolling over to just anyone.

They also barely talked. What was the point? Those of anbu have no names, no past, just the mission. And right now, their mission required speed. The target had moved through this area less than half a day ago at an alarming rate. And he'd left quite the trace.

"… Um…"

Arai breaks the silence at last.

"Shouldn't we, uh, discuss some kind of strategy here? I mean, this guy is a rogue, but he's one of the Sannin… a-and we saw what he did back there to the last unit…"

There was a massacre. Six members dead, two with their waist and hips missing. Another was pierced dead by some sort of teeth, and next to her had been a mound of a body left, seemingly dissolved from inside. The last two seemed to have been crushed to death, with one having their body additionally split by a sharp object, probably a sword. And this was all one individual's doing.

"Danzo said it _probably_ is him… but there are plenty other ninjas that use snakes."

Daoko sounded like she recited that in her sleep. Like that, she made Arai silent again.

"… He must have expended a lot of chakra still. This is our best chance, before he recovers."

Kakashi said that without much care. He wasn't looking to assure either of these strangers.

"Let's just find that bastard and beat him. Three anbu can finish the job."

They leapt through the treetops in further silence, their masked faces unchanging. Crossing a river with a fallen tree bridge, they took note of several seals which had been discreetly placed about, as well as wire. The target was stationary, ripe for the picking.

Like moths to a flame, they avoided the traps with precision, homing in from the treetops, the other two following Kakashi's nose.

A weakness to a dog's alleged sense of smell is its inability to pick up what one may call "dimensions" to a scent. This is one thing that makes a snake's sense of smell far superior to a canine. They sense the vibrations of layers upon which a small descends on their olfactory senses.

With a sickening crack, giant wooden logs suddenly were summoned into existence. Not all the tags were just surveillance, it seems. Daoko and Arai were caught in the behind a bit, and Kakashi dove forward without them. The scent of blood was ahead, not back there. Let it come to him, let it come…

There is a blur of movement before him suddenly as a head rears from seemingly nowhere. Like a snake, it reveals a mouth of teeth and, before Kakashi could even draw his kunai, it bites him hard in the shoulder and tosses him down from midway down the canopy, slamming him past branches onto the forest floor.

He recovered quickly enough, picking himself up. That thing's fangs were enough to pierce even the armor. The site of the bite was burning. Venom.

A few feet from him, stood the body. Its neck was stretched incredibly far up, attached to the head, like a rokurokubi. Like a rubber band, the neck retracted at an alarming pace and came back to its body. The target did not look like the picture of the pale man with long black hair who was supposed to be Orochimaru. This guy has short, dark brown hair, with a slight braid wrapped around the head. He had that same smile though… and those eyes…

"Well, lookie what the snake dragged in."

A long, forked tongue slithers between his lips, which draw unnaturally deep and high up the sides of his face. He was pale indeed, but had a stronger jaw.

Whatever. Kakashi drew his short sword and darts at the man, uncaring where the other two were. This was fine.

Like a wiry blade of grass swaying, the target wove in and out of the openings of his attacks. He was by no means haphazard or slow, this guy was just way better. The way he moved was like a writhing cobra. You'd be hard pressed to pin it down.

"Aren't you in a hurry to die?"

Yes.

Something caught on his neck, and he couldn't even gasp. It pulled like a rope and dragged him about onto the ground, threatening to choke him to death. He barely struggled a second before cutting whatever it was off. Then he heard a hiss close to the side of his face and a sudden pierce of the side of his neck by two sharp points.

Without registering the need to cry out, he tore the strangling device off. It flopped onto the ground nearby, still wriggling. It was a severed snake. No doubt poisoned.

From around some of the trees, shadow doppelgangers of the target, in the flesh, stepped out.

"Be a good doggie and die."

Gladly.

But his trained body darted forward anyway, unheeding of his own desires. This body had to be the flesh. No time to focus on those fakes. Just land one hit on him and they were all goners…

Pain. Searing pain started spreading rapidly from the two bites, shooting up his neck, down his spine, along his arm... His movement jerked just slightly as he fought the burning sensation.

That left a wide opening for just enough time. The doppelgangers seized upon him like hyenas to a kill. They were on him before he even reached the real body. They seemed too fluid. Slowly, their human shape seemed to give away. They weren't shadows… They were snakes!

Kakashi couldn't even remove his mask in time to use Obito's sharingan. The deluge of serpents of incredible. They weren't just asps either; they were fully poisonous pythons. In their number, they wrapped around his arms and legs, restraining them tightly. A majority found good hold on his armored chest. As they applied their muscular bodies, the armor began to crack, and Kakashi felt his chest begin to creak and scream from the crushing pressure. His ribs! They strained and he could feel them bend and slowly, slowly…

Three cracks at once.

He barely made a noise. Thank god the mask hid his stupid contorted face. Contorted in pain. Was this how it felt, Obito? No, no way. Obito endured far worse…

Next were his limbs. As he felt them slowly being twisted out of their sockets while he lay like a convicted being drawn and quartered to death, the snake man walked up and looked down at him in amusement.

Slowly, slowly, he put his oddly feminine hand on the wolf mask and put a finger to his lips with his other hand. How much chakra did this guy have, to still be able to play around like this?! To maintain this many chakra creatures… and who knows what other traps were keeping those other two.

The finger leaves his lips. Kakashi is still straining against the pull of the serpent constriction when he feels a hard stab in his gut on the left side. The bastard drove something like a fang into his side. It was big, like a kunai knife. And boy did it hurt like hell.

"Ngg-!"

First his ribs, and now this. Kakashi felt the blood rise to his lips from inside and he coughs, choking back any cry. The hiss of snakes squeezing him to death were far louder.

The snake man smiles with ugly malice, so his smiling muscles seem to nearly reach higher than his nose. Without much more expression, he drives two more fangs into the ninja's body, only slightly above where the first one was embedded.

"G-GUHH-!"

The cry tore from his lips, involuntary. Why? He had resigned himself to this kind of death many times. But his body still protested against his death wish and embrace to pain. The subsequent gasps and coughing that ensued wracked his body and he could not still the convulsions from the pain and venom at once.

That fucker finally lifts his mask off. He looks down with that creepy-ass smile down at the young face with a mask drawn up short of those mismatched eyes. Seeing the scarred sharingan, the smiling face seemed to almost … soften?

Without warning, the target drives the fourth fang in, but to his throat.

Now, he couldn't even scream.

"GRGBLKKHBGRL—"

It sounded like he was drowning. Well, he was. The thing pierced his windpipe. Blood was flooding in now. The convulsions were full throttle, no longer to be controlled. His eyes betrayed his panic as pain from the venom, from the fangs, and from his lungs being flood with blood, all drowned out his thoughts of anything prior. His vision became a blur, as a haze.

This was it!

That creepy face guy though.

With a swift mist step, Daoko slashed down on that smiling creepy fucker. Arai was behind her. They both had some rough and tumble patches with his clones hidden up in the trees. But that was irrelevant. Just look what he fucking did to Kakashi…

"Arai, get the kid. I'll slice this fucker up…"

As though they perceived it, the pile of snakes on Kakashi started pulling, trying to drag the bleeding mess of a body away with them. Arai threw expertly aimed senbon at their heads, having learned to strike the wings off a moving mosquito when he learned about pressure points. Once struck, they fell still, like regular snakes.

The snake man seemed to stare at Daoko with unblinking eyes. Then, with a cheeky grin, he turns and runs away into the forest.

"W-HEY!"

The woman grips her tanto blade in fury at the anticlimactic escape. She should just as well go after him right now…

"Daoko, this is bad!"

Arai called out to her in a somewhat scared voice. She turns to look, with slight reluctance, as her grip on her sword loosened.

Her trained eyes lay on that broken body, picked out from the many corpses of snakes. The chest was deflated and inflating oddly. Flail chest? Definitely broken ribs… the inflation was way too low. He's not breathing right.

Some of his limbs were twisted a bit funny, but that was the least of the concerns. Many of the snakes bit past the armor after having cracked it and reached the cloth parts. Where they bit through showed the torn skin… no, it wasn't torn… the fucking skin was burning from the acidity of the venom.

Those four fangs embedded deep in him. The three on his sides hit the vital point of the abdomen, so there was an immense hemorrhage there. The one on the throat… If any of them moved, the blood flow would be too severe to staunch. Not that it would change anything. The amount of blood he's lost already had to be fatal as it seemed…

Arai shakily runs a quick assessment of the internal damage with his chakra, moving his hands about the body like a scanner. Three broken ribs. The venom seemed to be of a dual nature. It was destroying his innards not only by eating the proteins, but also dissolving the arterial walls like acid. Cell death is imminent.

The three fangs pierced his stomach and liver, and his liver was failing from the amount of toxins now entering. His stomach's gastrointestinal fluid meanwhile was leaking and literally digesting his own flesh. That awful wound to his throat too… trachea was filling with blood… alveoli bursting from liquid contact… soon the lungs would stop. The heart was fibrillating like mad, not really even delivering blood anymore… soon the brain will die if pulmonary arrest sets in…

Arai was pale like he had just had all his blood drained. Kakashi's eyes were glazed and his breath was repeats of gasps in agony. There was some gargling from the fluid in his throat as he convulsed violently, the venom taking the last of his strength.

"Fucking shit, do something!" Daoko barked at Arai snappishly, "Tourniquet the torso!"

"I-I'm trying to combat the poison first!"

It's no good… the kid is cold. The blood … so much blood… Arai heard it. That dreaded sound. His aunt made that noise right before they signed the death certificate. He stood there and watched it happen as his uncle clung to him like their roles had been reversed. That rattling noise when someone's last gasp leaves the body … the last bit of life issued…

Kakashi's glazed eyes nearly rolled all the way back in his head as the convulsions left him horribly stiff for a second before releasing them from its clutches. And then he was still.


	3. Resuscitation

Every nanosecond seemed to take so long in passing as they heard that last breath. Daoko moved first, darting to Arai's side.

"I'm going to mist step us back to the river."

"W-" Arai stops himself, profusely sweating as he continued working on that dead body, "… Please be quick."

Cold water. Cold numbs the body and slows processes, including cellular deconstruction. Bodies found at sea were far less decomposed thanks to the cold and salt. Drowning victims stood a better chance of recovery with no side effects when submerged in colder temperatures. This was risky because the sheer volume of blood lost would increase due to the presence of water.

Kakashi was dead alright. But he didn't have to stay that way.

Daoko grabbed loosely on the two and in a flash, they appeared by the rushing river bridged by the fallen tree, directly on the pebbled banks where the water rose to one's ankles. She had perfected this technique to get past guards. This was the first time it would be used otherwise.

Arai had blood all over his front. The cold clarity of the water shocked him slightly, but seemed to clear his thoughts a bit. Red dyed the river around them. He moves to make sure Kakashi is nearly fully submerged in the cold water. Now for that poison…

"Would a normal antidote work?"

"I doubt it… I'm forcing a lot of it out by the wounds but I need to stop the bleeding… Then we have to remove the blood from his lungs, and resuscitate him…"

Arai was pausing not because of uncertainty, but from exhilarating fatigue. When the stakes were this high, it made him glad he was an adept in the healing arts. He always admired Tsunade, even if the other boys made fun of him for specializing in healing. It didn't matter. The thrill of figuring out solutions to seemingly impossible problems was beyond these meat heads. But it was right in his wheelhouse. Daoko looked thoughtfully at his efforts.

"Alright. I'll pull the one at the neck. You staunch it."

"Hehe, don't order me around…"

"I may not have healing jutsu like you, but I have first aid experience."

"Fine."

She coordinated with his timing. The fang came out with a large bloom of blood in the water. It obscured Kakashi's face even. Probably nicked the jugular. Pray it wasn't the carotid. Arai had the neck wound staunched incredibly quick.

"… With the amount of blood lost, can we even restart the heart?"

"Just leave that to me and move on to the next one."

Arai commanded Daoko with surety and precision. Each fang was soon removed, and the wounds were closed. The poison seemed to leach into the bloody water and darken it. Arai's method was working. And he only seemed more excited.

"We need to get him out of the water to clean his lungs."

Daoko hefts the limp body out of the water. He felt light. Maybe it was all the blood he lost. Light as a child. Like little Toka. She lay him down atop the bank, like she did with little Toka that day. Cold, wet, just like little Toka. She pulls down that mask over his nose and mouth. Good god, he really is young… She closes those half-lidded eyes with the irises rolled back in the head.

"Ok, we'll work fast. I'm going to push the blood out of the lungs, but you must remove it from his mouth."

"Should I do rescue breathing?"

"Yeah, I'll also be doubling a cardiac massage. Not a lot of time left."

"What about the blood."

"I said leave it to me."

Arai moved his hands skillfully along the diaphragm and gave rapid thrusts in quick succession. They were just strong enough to have an effect, but not rupture the tender wounds. Blood began to spill from Kakashi's cold, wet lips, as well as his nostrils. Daoko quickly proceeded to clamp his mouth with hers, sucking the blood out and spitting it to the side. God, this awful iron taste again…

It felt like forever despite how fast they actually worked. Tsunade would be proud probably. Arai moved onto focus solely on restarting the heart, and Daoko to acting as Kakashi's lungs. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation was something every ninja honestly should know. While healing jutsu repaired cells and such, it was foolish to over rely on that when it couldn't restart a heart.

"One, two, three, four, five, six…"

One hundred per minute. Two breaths every twenty…

The ribs were partially wrecked, but Arai couldn't focus on the possibility of a puncture just yet. Not while the heart remained still. Normally, he wasn't very strong, but the damage done to Kakashi's body made it easier. Just a little. The body was still of taut muscle. Cold, unmoving muscle without a touch of life.

Blood rose intermittently to Kakashi's lips as the repetitions continued. Daoko had that taste the whole time. She spat it out when it came. The body took only her breaths as she breathed as hard as she could to inflate that shattered chest of his. There was no exchange, no return.

After nearly three minutes of pumping the broken chest and filling the damaged lungs, little had changed. Kakashi remained cold and pale, turning blue.

"…It's the blood loss…"

Daoko looked up to Arai.

"I'll do compressions."

"… Ok."

They swapped positions. It was now night. The chill was coming onto them after they had sat in that river. It mattered not.

Daoko's compressions were much rougher, Arai observed. At this rate, she'll disturb all the clots.

Biting the bullet, Arai pulls out a syringe and a small bottle of tiny pellets. When Daoko pauses to stare, he commands her to keep up the compressions. Wordlessly, he draws out some blood from the dead body with the syringe before injecting it into the bottle with pellets. The blood subsumes the solids and soon appears to look like a vial of blood. Quickly, Arai reinjects Kakashi with that odd blood serum. He directly stabs the chest where the arterial route should be, and injects slowly.

"…What was that?"

"Blood replenisher."

Arai replies casually as though it were an obvious term. It was an experimental substance in fact, made with his own blood and chakra. From a young age, he realized he himself had remarkable healing capability. What made it even more amazing was when he studied how it affected others. His blood was capable of assuming the type of another, and releasing an odd protein which aided in the replication of the other blood type. Such made him optimal as a donor. That was why he'd kept it a secret.

The two resume revival efforts in silence. Arai would take pauses in rescue breathing to repair some of the wounds and prepare them from bursting.

It took nearly an agonizing twenty minutes before Arai scans and finds a slight flutter of the heart. A fibrillation. Kakashi still was not breathing on his own. Still, it had to be enough. Daoko, showing some cold perspiration, adamantly retook her place as Kakashi's replacement lungs.

"We need to get back to the village. He's in fib and we need more equipment…"

"Hell with it, how do we move with him like this."

Just then, a sudden yellow flash appears in their midst.


	4. Urgency

"How is he..."

Minato glances with slight worry over his shoulder at Arai, who is carrying Kakashi on his back. The white fang was pretty much out of it. His breath was weak, nigh imperceptible, and his body was cold. His wounds bled onto the medic's back, lukewarm and fresh. This jumping around wasn't good for him. It would grate and open those delicately stitched wounds. Any moment now, hemorrhagic shock would rear, and they'd have him clinically dead again.

"It's too bad we can't move smoother and faster..."

It had taken four fucking days to even get near that snake man, whoever he was. And now they had one lagging like this, trying to return to the village. The Yellow Flash technique was not really meant for long distances. The chakra mark could make it easy to span a city, sure. But miles of forest land? It also only got harder with three young adults, rather than two young children.

Arai feels another spasm from the half-dead one.

"He's semi conscious I think."

Minato nods. His face shows some contortion in slight anger and helplessness. Daoko had relayed what little information they had to him just as they started their long venture back. They hadn't seen exactly what happened. All they knew was, after the wooden trap had split them, Kakashi went straight forward, ignoring, perhaps not even registering Daoko's order to desist for a moment. Then those odd snake men appeared. They did not match the detail given on the target. Unlike regular shadow doppelgangers, they became snakes when you hit them, dangerous ones at that. The two had been relatively lucky, or just careful enough, that they avoided major bites and got past those writhing masses with bare scrapes. But when they passed the trap zone, dropping lower to the forest floor, they only saw a mass of snakes. They had nearly no visual on Kakashi, save a raggedy mop of that silver hair peeping from the massive, constricting coils. And just a little away was the main body, or so they think. Daoko had made the slash at him, but he escaped. Anbu would have dictated they pursue him, and leave Kakashi to die. But they hadn't.

"... Thank you. However little it means to you, I-"

"I assessed the situation," Daoko cuts the Yellow Flash's thanks off, "That ... whoever that man was... He'd killed six jounin back at the trail he left... and he seemed to still have that much energy left to fight us with so many traps and sustain that many clones. I don't think he ran because he was running low or at a disadvantage either... It's like ... he wanted us to follow."

"Danzo won't be happy either way," Arai mumbles glumly, "Though if we died, it might be easier for him."

"That brat," Daoko's eye peers at Kakashi from the corner, "If he'd just stayed put for even _one_ second we wouldn't be retreating. Wasted effort."

That troubled Minato. He remembered how brash and reckless Kakashi had been before they lost Obito. That boy's death sobered him up, made him more cool and calm-headed. But now, Rin was gone. It was probably that cool and calculated front that knew what to do, for the sake of everyone, for the mission. But what about himself?

The teacher knew his student. He knew the answer. It had upended him. Nothing would matter now. That's why he was doing this. That's why he had done this. Minato had worried this might happen. But he said nothing when he learned Kakashi was accepted in Anbu. He could only congratulate him. But Minato knew. He'd kept tabs on his student even after Kakashi never spoke to him again.

Sarutobi had spoken to him about his exchanges with Danzo. That newcomer runt was blowing everyone away with his willingness to just take all those missions. Those horrific missions. All Anbu generally go by the same motto: "No past, no names, no future. Just the mission."

Kakashi, a normal, broken kid, had embraced it wholly. He felt dead inside already, so what difference did it make to become a weapon?

Minato's palms gripped tightly, reflexively. That damn guilt... If only he'd dissuaded him back then...!

"We should see if we can reach a check point tonight... I don't want him exposed to the elements at this state in a camp."

Luxuries to Anbu.

These woods seemed stilled, as quiet as when they had first passed. It was nearing night now. Moving at their fastest speed, they had covered considerable ground. Arai kept tabs on how Kakashi's breathing, weak as it was, only slowed more and more.

"Stop. Stop."

It was a lurch of momentum as they paused their pace along the branches of a massive tree. Minato and Daoko kept up their guard as Arai unloaded Kakashi and lay him down on the branch.

Arai put his ear on that broken, bloody chest. The blood smeared on his cheek. Then he moved over the other's mouth, listening for breath. It was but a bare whistle.

"His breath is too weak."

"At least he's breathing," Daoko almost snorts, "We gotta keep moving."

The medic half ignores her impatience, still speaking like an analytic, "The cardiac muscle is failing. Must have been from the venom..."

Arai places a hand on that chest, mindful how the sinew still held, but most of the skeletal structure underneath was still a mess. One wrong move and a fracture would puncture something. Using his chakra as a feeler, he could see the lungs still had blood in them. It was irritating the tissue. The pericardium was barely fully intact, and there was blood in it too. The heart itself was fluttering with somewhat of a rhythm, slightly erratic. That's hemoptysis, pulmonary embolism, possible heart tamponade, arrhythmia...

Wordless, the medic keeps this to himself. Panic would do them no good. That doctor that killed his aunt. His hands shook when he knew the problems, because he couldn't handle the truth. So he went too hard, too far. Made all the mistakes. In less than an hour, he just pronounced her dead of a hemorrhage. But he could only say it wasn't his fault.

"...So?" Minato kneels on one knee opposite Arai by Kakashi, looking the medic firmly in the eye, "Will he make it?"

"..."

Arai pulls out his syringe with more of those pellets and repeats the blood repletion he did earlier. Then he proceeds to hold Kakashi's nose shut as he gave him breaths mouth to mouth. The white fang sputters and convulses, ragged gasps issuing forth after a minute or two of assisted breathing.

"I may have to repeat that a few times down the road. He's a wreck."

Minato nods and stands, "Then let's keep moving."

Arai assents with a nod and hoists Kakashi roughly back onto his back. They resume their fast pace.

_Don't you dare die, Kakashi... I know it hurts... But you... you still want to live, don't you..._

Minato fervently hoped that the fact Kakashi's revival happened was not a coincidence. Some part of him must still be wanting to stay human.

...

In a fevered dream sequence, Kakashi had felt himself on fire, dissolved in acid. Then he was plunged into an ice bath and emerged, like a blade fresh from the forge. But his limbs were heavy. He couldn't breathe.

Between these flashes, he had the sensation of pain still. His body was screaming, but he hadn't the strength anymore. There was a feeling of air moving past his face. Movement. But he wasn't moving. It hurt too much even without moving.

_Be quiet... be quiet..._

He ignored the urges. The pain, the pain!

For the briefest moment, Rin and Obito, their backs, were there. The two were walking away from him. He saw his hand reach out to them... But his voice did not call them.

_"Ah...ahh..."  
_

Like a newborn, he couldn't say anything coherent. Did his lips even move?

They moved away, further and further... into some bright white background int the distance. The brightness slowly swallows them. But he cannot move even an inch towards them.

_"Take me... take me too... Let me... see them again..."_

He'd reached for that infinity.

And he found snakes.


	5. Prevention

The four had only reached the checkpoint long enough to lay Kakashi on some emergency medical table before he started convulsing. His body jerked as though in a seizure and his face was a tight grimace. His eyes were squeezed shut. Blood and froth leaked from his mouth, agape and gasping, and his palms refused to uncurl. His body was taut like a drawn string as all hands in the room worked to restrain him, Arai, Daoko and Minato included.

"Dammit!"

They jab a syringe into his arm and flush it with saline. This was no hospital. There was little else other than first aid and pain killers here.

The jerking ceased as the body seized up. Where the skin is shown, there is visuals of veins like that of extreme exertion during a workout. After some agonizing seconds, the body lapses into limpness. The silver haired-head lolls a bit on the table as the face is shown to slowly relax.

One of the checkpoint ninjas quickly checks for a pulse.

"He's dead!"

Arai shoves the man aside and scans with his chakra again. Fibrillation. The arrhythmia knocked it out of pulse completely. And the tamponade was much more present, constricting around the heart. Where the pericardium leaked also was filling the chest area, compressing the lungs from outside. They couldn't expand.

"We're going to conduct emergency surgery...!"

They stared at the medic, who was no longer so meek.

"NOW!"

At his bark, they scramble to work. Daoko and Minato step out of the room.

"... I'm going to send a messenger about this whole thing."

She leaves Minato to await the fate of his student.

_Danzo won't be happy either way._

With a terse note, she sends the hawk off. There was no guarantee Anbu was even aware of anything they did. It's been a waste of five days, or it will be, once they return tomorrow. That's all it'd look like.

A waste... Maybe it wouldn't be one if that brat doesn't die. It wouldn't be as much of a waste as that hour she spent, hoping little Toka would survive...

...

Cardiothoracic surgery on the fly. That's one off the bucket list.

Arai had contemplated it before, as he uses his chakra to form precise scalpels to cut open that broken chest. But before, he would have just killed him faster. Maybe.

First, siphon the blood from chest cavity and drain the pericardium. Keep the blood supply on. There was no supplemental oxygen apparatus, so a person had to keep suction on that airway as someone else breathed into Kakashi to reinflate those lungs

Next, cardiac massage. Energy is what they need. With his chakra, Arai coats his gloved hand and grips that organ to heal the torn parts of the pericardium and the eroded muscle. It wouldn't substitute for physiotherapy, but it's something. He then starts to force the ventricles and atria to contract, facilitating heartbeat. This goes on for some long minutes, until the squishy, bloody lump starts to move on its own. Then the lungs start to work a little more after an ad hoc chest drain.

Last, seal everything back up. Using chakra as a melding agent, Arai bonds the bones of the rib cage back in place temporarily, at least until they reach Konoha. Then, he finally seals up the chest with sutures. By the end of what was a two hour operation, they had expended nearly all the matching blood in the check point emergency supply. Kakashi was still anemic.

Arai had him put on some more painkillers. Whatever venom remained in Kakashi's system was unlikely to be combated by the stock antivenom they had here. They needed an herbalist to do that. They didn't have liquid nutrient to prevent further deterioration. This was a temporary fix still.

As he walks out of the room, all bloodied, he sees Minato there. The older man had known the success. His face said of something else.

"Is there something you need done?"

"... Yeah," Minato decided he would take action, "Put him on a chakra suppressant. Or some kind of lucidity numbing medicine."

Arai was surprised and confused, "Why?"

"Because I don't want him waking up and killing himself."


	6. Regroup

"Hmm…" The old man looked out from the thin strip of window to the outside world with an inscrutable expression. Perhaps it was in contempt, "So you're sure it wasn't Orochimaru…"

"Yes sir. It might have been similar jutsu, but the physical was all wrong. And according to the examples-"

"This whole thing just does not point to Orochimaru."

Danzo slightly narrowed his one good eye at the unwanted commentary as he turns around to look at Jiraya in the dim room. The oaf sits, legs spread, leaning his chest on the back of the chair.

"And how do we know it's not just genjutsu for a disguise?"

"He never was one for the same face was he? Well, it's not his style to just leave it like this. He would have harmed all three of you. Hell, he would have killed two and left one. But just leaving after one didn't even die… that's just not-"

"I doubt a madman has room in that crackhead for a rigid modus operandi."

"More than you'd think. He wouldn't just come up out of nowhere for no reason unless he wanted something. But this guy seems-"

"You act like you know him so well, lord Jiraya, yet you couldn't stop him."

Jiraya frowns slightly at Danzo's remark. The old man continues speaking with liberality, ignoring the toad sage.

"He could easily just want to slowly kill off our forces. But, no matter. Whoever it is, that is of no consequence. He has declared war against us by slaughtering our ninja," Danzo looks to the two operatives, "This changes nothing. You are still to find him and eliminate him."

"… Yes sir."

"As for that now-toothless hound…"

…

It had only been about an hour since they arrived back at Konoha. The checkpoint had secured medical transference back to the village for Kakashi. Once back in the village hospital, they took him quickly into the emergency wing. Arai and Daoko disappeared back to the shadowy world of Anbu.

Minato allowed himself to be called away to Sarutobi. The old man could read his face, as they had come to the same conclusion.

"It is admirable you care for your student so much, Minato. But when the person does not even have the will to live …"

"I think he still does, Third. Or else he wouldn't even be here right now."

"The mind and body are sometimes at a disagreement."

"I think it's rather… his heart and mind."

"Good to know then, that Danzo hasn't killed that off yet."

Minato managed a small, wry smile. A heart could never die so easily. It could be broken, and put back together. He only hoped it would be pieced together the right way.

…

The snakes had gotten him, dragged him into an abyss. He'd fought against them as they bit. He actually screamed. They dropped him hard in the darkness, where he could see nothing. He couldn't feel his left eye. Obito's eye is gone. It's just a gaping hole. A hole much like the one killing Rin left on his chest…

He could move now, in this smothering darkness. Everything still hurt and burned. Where was he going? It didn't matter.

Is this Hell? Was that light the last time he'd see Rin and Obito?

A flicker.

Their faces and shining eyes appear in the dark, like a beacon. He runs toward them, then past them asn they vanish. What a cruel joke.

Lost again, he walks aimlessly in the dark, not caring if he lived or died.

A flicker again. Here, there…

Why must they taunt him, when all he wants is to join them?

…

"Clear!"

Third shock. The first and second did nothing. A jolt of joules runs through the young man, making his body arc and tense slightly for about five seconds. It's not a violent jerking, just a contraction of the muscles for a moment as electricity courses through. The limbs flop lifelessly when the current runs its course.

"Still nothing."

"One last time. C'mon kid…" The surgeon pumps on that creaky chest that hadn't fully healed.

Another shock. This time, a beep. That scarred face looks like it could be sleeping. They had taped the eyes shut. Two tubes are affixed to his mouth and one to his nose: one to pump air into his lungs, another to drain blood from it, and the nose tube to drain blood from his collapsed stomach.

"His body's still showing signs of sepsis."

"Has anyone got word about the antivenom yet?"

"Let's just focus on what we can do right now about these broken arms and legs..."

…

"I can't believe you're okay with waiting."

"I'm not."

Daoko crossly stands atop the roof where Arai sits by the railing. They'd gotten out of the meeting a few minutes ago. Danzo made it clear he didn't care how they had to do it, but that creeper was to either be caught or killed, with or without Kakashi. Daoko made the surprising call to wait.

"I'm just not suicidal. We need more information."

"They say he's going to make it. Calling it a miracle."

"Well, he sure as hell looked dead to me. The real surprise…"

Daoko subtly eyes Arai, letting them finish her statement. He notices but just gives a meek, fake smile.

"Well, Anbu have to be prepared for anything. Though, I do hope this gets Danzo to consider implementing the three-man squad formation as a permanent Anbu thing."

Daoko scoffs, "We don't really need medics. This just shows him how much of a drag it is to need to care."

"Then why did you care?"

Daoko does not answer that.

"… Anyway, I want to see if we can identify that guy. Knowing the enemy is the first step. Recon 101."

That bit of trivia at the end was how she stopped herself from socking Arai in the face.


	7. Decision

"F-Five months?!"

Daoko's mouth hangs open at the reply from the doctor. The man nods.

"The herbalists have not been able to decode that venom make-up, I'm afraid."

Arai frowns slightly, "He _was_ bitten a lot... Tsk. I couldn't get it all out..."

"Not that you may have been able to... It attaches itself to the blood cells, or so we've observed. So unless you took all his blood out, we wouldn't be sure. And even then, I'm not sure it speaks for any potentially having remained in his marrow..."

Daoko sighs and tries to remain as professional as a disappointed person can. Forget waiting.

"We've put him in a medically induced coma to slow down any deterioration. It seems unlikely he'll wake up without a real antidote. And it still continues to eat at his tissue, despite how we've been regenerating it via jutsu."

"... If only Tsunade were still here..."

Arai mumbles that on the side. That legendary woman of the Sannin could counteract any toxins the sand village had thrown at her. But after Orochimaru had left the village, she was next to follow. No one is quite sure why she had left in the public.

"Well, that just means we're gonna have to hunt earlier."

Daoko thanks the doctor and briskly turns before mist stepping out with Arai, onto the roof of the hospital. She sighs extra loudly to make her exasperation known, stretching slightly.

"... So we're going now?"

"Well, Danzo won't be happy hearing us tell him we're going to wait five fucking months to see if the brat even wakes up. We have to go. And if we get any sample venom to make an antidote, that's a bonus, ain't it."

"We were pretty lucky neither of us got bit..."

"Tch. Luck has nothing to do with it. He was being an idiot, rushing in like that! Practically asked for it. That dipshit. Son of the White Fang..." She scowls, "No excuse to inconvenience everyone!"

Inconvenience. Yes, that was all Toka was. Her death only made things inconvenient. Mother and father fell apart. House was so fucking empty, filled with those empty bottles and garbage. Only tears and useless trash. And yelling, and the fights...

"We'll just have to be careful, right?" Arai makes that fake smile as he shifts on his mask, "Sure wish we knew what we were up against though."

"We're going to move tomorrow. You have all day to poke around the books if you want," Daoko makes a dismissive sound with her tongue before affixing her mask on, "But when has Anbu _not_ just thrown people at a problem to solve it?"

Arai actually snorts slightly, "Point taken."

"Hmf."

The two part ways from the roof.

...

This had to be hell. What else explained it?

An incessant drone, some buzzing... All these noises in his head. Not one was coherent. Was this how death really was like for them?

Dragging his feet across some dark bog, he could see nothing ahead or behind. There were just all these noises, not even voices. His own voice couldn't overcome them, no matter how much he called out for them... Rin... Obito...

_I guess I'm not going... to where they went._

He had seen them, just for a moment, a glimpse. It wasn't enough. He wanted to talk to them, tell them how sorry he was. They didn't even look at him. Then again, why should they? Actually, why should he even see them again? This is punishment. Garbage like him ... He could never go with them. He'll just wallow here forever, only wishing.

A funny thought came to him, that Obito might meet his father. Assuming he was there with them, anyway.

...

Minato stands near the bedside, looking down at his comatose student in the hospital room. His silver hair still stuck out, despite the bandages wrapping most of his head. His unscarred eye was uncovered. There was an opening in the bandages for the gastrointestinal tube to his nose, and a holder for the endotracheal tube in his mouth. His limbs had luckily been able to be set well enough with healing, and only had minor casts. The torso is partially exposed, with some bandaging. The monitor pads are attached to his pectorals, leading to the rhythmic machine. There is also the scars, fresh from the surgery, and an arterial port near his left breast. The IV drip makes an occasional sound amid the hiss of oxygen and beep of the heart monitor.

A nurse comes in to flush the port, check to IV. She gives it a slight squeeze. Then she shines a small light in Kakashi's eye. No change.

_A coma... for possibly four to five months... And then if nothing changes... Declare him dead._

No way. Minato wouldn't accept it. His hand clenches beside him. With a brisk turn, he leaves the room. The image of that near-dead form on the bed remains in his head. What could he do? Probably go and interfere with that Anbu business. Find whoever that enemy is, get an antidote... But how? It's not like he had the most time on his hands either. A lot of important missions are pushed his way nowadays, signaling for something greater.

He decided he would talk to Sarutobi tonight over dinner. He and Kushina had already invited him over anyway.

Back in his loft, Kushina was mainly washing her beautiful long hair. She had just come back from a mission herself it seems. Because of her status as a tailed beast vessel, she was pretty much confined in what she could do, even on missions. So she made the most of each of those.

"What's wrong?"

She looks at him with a slight head tilt after she steps out of the bath in a towel. He thought he had a good poker face.

"It's one of my students..."

"Trouble? Well, you did tell me about how stubborn this kid is..."

"Haha, I didn't think you listened... He's so stubborn he's ended up in the hospital..." Minato sighs as he takes off his battle vest.

"... Don't tell me. Mission on that note?"

"Well, not _officially_..."

"That won't stop you from helping those kids," She chuckles and turns to go to her room, "That's why I'm sure you'll be a great father~"

He laughs lightly, "Where'd that come from..."

"Well, don't you want a child?" Kushina sticks her tongue out at him playfully.

He scoffs at the jest, smiling, "Maybe after I figure out how to deal with the students, eh?"

She smiles back before pulling into her room, "Well, get ready. We do have a guest tonight."


	8. Pursuit

"The snake sage…"

Arai skims the pages of the entry in the book of senjutsu. He'd been poring over all the snake jutsus he could find. Since it uses literal animals, it made sense to be a nature based type.

"_The title of the sage is gifted onto one who establishes the utmost connection with the creature's plane and essence of natural existence. This connection is summed up as senjutsu. From the three sage areas known, there are purportedly three types of sages possible: the toads, the slugs, and the snakes. As the toads and slugs have their own sage realm, so do the snakes. With extensive coverage from the sannin Jiraya, we are able to establish some parallels. Using former research notes salvaged from Orochimaru, we have gleaned the following information..."_

"_First, the snake sage is a serpent dwelling in Ryuuchi Cave. The snake is white, and like the legend concerned with white serpents, it is capable of immortality and rebirth. Despite its eternal youth, it remains in the form of a decrepit old woman when approached through the use of illusions."_

"_Second, no human is the snake sage. Unlike the toad sage title granted to Jiraya, neither Orochimaru nor any known predecessor has ever assumed that address. It is believed that the White Snake keeps that title for herself. However, she is rumored to have tutored some ninjas in her art, though none are sages. It is probable that no human can manifest their natural energy to the degree acceptable by them, meaning that among the sages are different standards. It is believed Orochimaru has had contact with her. She is equivalent to the Great Toad Sage in power and prestige."_

"_Third, we have no reason to assume there is another snake sage. However, it is not impossible that there is perhaps a purple snake sage, or a blotted snake sage, based on the visuals we have of other gigantic, sentient serpents. There is no coverage of this, nor evidence of this speculation. But if this were true, it is likely to be a minor sage subservient to the White Snake."_

Arai folds his arms and thinks for a hard moment. It is nighttime, but he couldn't be bothered to lay down and close his eyes. They were going after the snake man tomorrow. He needed to properly digest this.

What if they were dealing with such a creature? Another snake sage? How would they beat one of those? Jiraya was definitely out of their league. Orochimaru is not a sage, but he is supposedly stronger than even Jiraya. And this sage thing would be equal, if not stronger...

"So..." Arai chuckles, "We're screwed."

…

At the blue before dawn, the two masked Anbu members were already on their way out to the forest. Daoko had intel of the target around the areas and they were going to be hot on his tail. What they had not expected was the Flash standing calmly in their way.

"-?!" Daoko skids seamlessly to a stop, "... Minato."

"Yo, you two."

"... You can't come with us." Daoko sighs, having known his intent.

"W-well that's a bit cold..." Minato scratches his cheek sheepishly, "But I'm afraid you're gonna have to take me."

"I won't have you obstructing our mission over your student. Even if you are the next hokage."

"Don't you think you could use some help?"

"No."

"Arai, help me out here...!"

Arai perks up slightly at the address.

"I'm the captain here. Last word is mine." Daoko folds her arms sternly. Goddamit this is why she hates dealing with people and their inconvenient whims...

"You don't honestly think a two-man team can do this? Even in Anbu, you guys have your units."

"I don't care. We make do with what lord Danzo gives us. That is all."

"Well, no one has to know," Minato shrugs, "I spoke to the Third about it and-"

"Anbu operates under lord Danzo."

Minato frowns at the stubbornness, "I only want to see this done properly. We're not going to get anywhere with you both getting killed and the guy getting away."

"Sorry, but protoco-"

"Let's just let him come," Arai sighs, "Couldn't hurt to finally get moving. And I'll take responsibility if captain won't."

Daoko is silent and makes a small sound of disapproval behind her mask. Minato grins. The woman shoves past him coldly.

"Whoa, hey... I won't get in your way."

"You better not."

The three start off on an uneasy step towards the location. It was reported to be near the sage realm of the cave, which had Arai turn his stomach a bit. The likelihood of an unbeatable threat loomed. But with Minato, who was famous in the village … well, it didn't help a lot, but it did something to settle him down. Kind of. The future hokage had to be some kind of assurance. And he was more sincere... it was always worse when helpers weren't sincere... lives are lost that way.

"There's something weird about this guy."

"Uh-huh?" Daoko sounds as tuned out as she can to the third wheel.

"Doesn't seem to leave far. With something of that deadliness, you'd think they're super-secretive until they just jump on you. But this is, what, the third time you've got a tail on him?"

"Arrogance leads first to fall."

"I don't think it's that."

"I don't care what you think."

Minato sighs at the icy attitude. He hoped this wouldn't be indicative of how they would fare in battle.

…

Kakashi's eyes flickered under their lids. His body remained tense even under the coma, so more than once had the nurse come in and jumped seeing his half-open eye. They re-taped it shut to prevent ulceration of the cornea. Occasionally his arms or a toe would twitch.

He wasn't there though. Couldn't feel a thing.

The darkness was suffocating, and the hissing of snakes was prevalent in there, what he could not see. His left eye is just a gaping hole still, though sometimes he could see those horrific visions again, playing over and over again in his mind. Obito and Rin...

He killed them. He couldn't save them. Their dying bodies and the light of life fading from their eyes, whether in his arms or their blood warm on his hands … He couldn't see anything else aside from that but darkness.

He saw them getting torn apart by snakes. He knew he couldn't save them. He was garbage. But he tried anyway, dove right in. If he failed, then maybe at least he could follow them.

Then the image changed. He was seeing unfamiliar faces. They were older, from a different time maybe, in jounin uniform. Something about them was familiar... but he didn't know them, ultimately.

_Help us..._

He saw their headbands of the village. And then a demarcation of their unit on their vests...

They were his father's teammates.

Disgust was the first gut reaction he felt. He remembered having seen them in the street shortly after the failure of that mission. They hadn't glanced at him, but he heard what they said about him, about his father. His father had saved them, and nothing but their spite had come of it.

Perhaps that really is what defined ninja. He'd fought samurai before, who would protect their allies at the cost of their own lives. Ninjas, on the other hand, have only the mission, the kill...

Heart and duty... the two did not seem to get along together.

Why was he seeing them now? Their specters reaching out like ugly beggars for alms. Why should he help them?

_Because I believe... that the White Fang was a true hero._

Obito's words...

Reluctantly, he reaches out...


	9. Antidote

Ryuuchi's vicinity consists of a variety of poisonous and wild flora, with equally dangerous fauna. The animals had long been terrorized by the snakes which come out to feed, and so evolved accordingly to match their savagery. Unlike the lazing mountainsides of Mount Myouboku, there was only the raw will of survival here.

It had taken six days to reach the outer edge of the forest. Six days of cold shoulders, that eventually evolved into a camaraderie built on annoyance and intermittent quips. Daoko still gave little regard to Minato, but he'd gotten used to it.

"I hear the creatures here are receptive to human speech."

"Great, you can beg them not to eat you."

"... So, any ideas how we find him in this place?"

"If anything, he'll probably find us."

Or our remains, thought Arai. Then again, they were looking here for something humanoid among beasts. Perhaps it would be a little easier.

Something zooms out from the trees down, straight like a projectile, at Minato. He reflexively goes to guard with a kunai. But the shapes change midair, latching onto his kunai blade when he tried to deflect them. They hiss.

Snakes!

Before they can rear and strike, Arai strikes them dead with well-aimed senbon needles to their heads. Their bodies arc a bit before falling limp and slipping off.

"Thanks!"

Arai nods. The team goes on the defensive, hearing subsequent subtle noises around. Snakes are very stealthy, with dexterous bodies that make less noise than a normal clunky human. There is a momentary silence, such that they can hear their nervous sweat drip.

Then the tap of wooden clogs.

Just before them, that figure appears. He is wearing a purple woman's kimono with long sleeves, along with high geta clogs. His legs are exposed, looking pale like marble. Daoko and Arai had not gotten the closest look before, but it was clear now. This man's face was very snake-like. His mouth's edges reach high up to his cheeks, and his eyes have that serpentine pupil. The pattern scales on his skin peeks out under his eyes.

"What a sssurprise."

He felt different, Daoko could tell. More potent. Maybe because they were in his home turf.

"Where'sss the white-haired one?"

"You should know. You landed him in the hospital."

Minato narrows his eyes slightly. This being … why did it have no killing intent?

"That'sss a sshame."

Minato darts at the slightest sound, knocking Arai out of the way. The ground where he stood bursts and out erupts the wiry body of a serpent, which would have bitten him otherwise.

Daoko charges, _tantou_ in hand, at the man. He makes a kicking motion, and she sees now that from his shoes was where the snake had buried in the ground. He pulls up his leg, cracking the earth where his snake appendage had burrowed, swinging it at her charge. She vaults up, blade shining. Utilizing the water in the atmosphere, she coats her sword to give it more heft.

Minato throws a marked kunai at the snake man, which he dodges. However, in the next millisecond, Minato appears behind him, holding the weapon and bringing it down.

The man smiles. His body disperses into a myriad of wriggling snakes just as Minato and Daoko's attacks are brought down. The snakes are small at first, like asps. Then they coagulate into those large poisonous pythons and rear to ensnare and constrict about the two.

Arai sends his wind charged senbon, with extra piercing power. They hit most of the serpents right where the medulla should be, severing the brain stem. When they slow and start to spin, his wind chakra makes them into little pinwheel blades before they finally drop. By then, they dispatched of most of the snakes.

"Slimy bastard...!"

Daoko and Minato jump back as a large, camo colored serpent head bursts out of the ground. It rises, the pointed head having a braid ornament on it. Around its neck is a single adornment of a gem, with talismans of the snake attached between beads. It towers leeringly above the three from the height of nearly five stories.

"W-…" Minato's eyes widen. He'd seen his master Jiraya's jutsu and the power even little toads possessed. He himself wasn't even quite the master of summoning Gamabunta yet, and this thing was about as big. So, _this_ is what they were dealing with.

"Well played ssso far," The serpent's tongue flicks out as the rest of its massive body slowly comes out of the ground in smooth coils, "But not nearly enough."

"This is genjutsu right..." Daoko scowls slightly.

"No... It's... a snake sage..." Arai sucks in a breath as his concerns are confirmed, "The human form was what was fake..."

"In the flesssh..." A deep chuckle arises from the creature's throat, "I mussst sssay, thisss turned out to be quite an amusssing chassse... where the hunted is now the hunter."

"Why were you targeting Konoha's ninja?" Minato keeps a level voice and eye as he addresses the creature.

"Out of boredom really..." The tail finally comes out and comically scratches the chin of the snake, "The massster is very demanding, so I wasss out for a small excursssion... But humansss are so curiousss... and sssussspissshusss... ssso I killed them."

Arai feels revulsion when the snake says it so casually. Killing and ending lives out of boredom... What, did this thing think it was a god?

"Well, you got another thing coming. Because humans also don't like it when you kill their own." Daoko readies her blade, which probably now looks like a toothpick in size.

The serpent chuckles throatily, "Folly. Your wordsss have no convicssshun for me to fear. You don't care about othersss."

That lightly catches her off guard. Was it reading her mind? Not that it was a big secret. Just unnerving.

"... The boy you nearly killed was my student," Minato steps forward, "And I need an antidote of your venom to save him."

The snake lowers its head and looks at Minato with something like interest in its eyes.

"You... chosssen Fourth hokage..." It licks one of its eyes, "You have that convicssshun..."

Those monstrous orbs of eyes scrutinize them slowly, like a scan. The two Anbu remain tense. It would probably be suicide to jump the gun.

"My venom is ssspecial... it will not be cured if the mind behind it isss unworthy... And I will not wassste my venom to help thossse who ought to die."

"Unworthy?"

"I ssssaw it in that boysss eyessss... He doesss not want to live."

Minato feels a cold stab. It was just as he suspected. All those times he'd just been thrown in, uncaring of the missions...

"It doesn't matter if he wants it or not," Daoko says curtly, "We have a mission here."

"You know you cannot ssstrike me down," The serpent hisses and bares its fangs as a show of its gaping maw, "But... I am willing to make you an excepsshun..."

"...We're listening," Minato says that despite the look Daoko gives him.

"I will give you the antidote, along with a corpssse to fake the death for your sssuperiorsss... But whether it worksss … will not be up to me."

"... And we're never to come back, right?"

"Yesss... I think I have had my fill of humansss for now..."

"...We aren't just going to trust this thing right?" Arai pipes up uneasily, "It... it just killed all those ninja..."

"You are quaking asss we ssspeak, fool. You are unsssuited, with a sssoft heart..."

Soft heart? It wasn't a direct insult, but Arai flinched reflexively at the comment anyway.

"Thossse with weak heartsss, and no convicssshun... are many. But to have that... isss rare," The snake looks intently on the future hokage, "I find it ssatissfying... to meet you... and sssee your heart and the fate it leadsss to..."

Minato stays still and quiet, taking the praise silently.

"I have no illsss againssst you ninja... but I do find it nesssesssary sssometimesss... to root out the weak."

"... So your venom is like a test?"

"Of sssorts, yessss," The snake gives a slight yawn, "And you ssshould not asssume I do not want to kill... that aura can be sssurpressssed for usss sssnakesss..."

So it can read minds.

"Ehe... I see."

"Now... give me your anssswer..."

Minato gives a light shrug on the side, a signal to desist to the other two. He nods to the serpent.

"Very well then..."


	10. Forgiveness

He was alive.

Against all odds, he's here, lying in bed, awake. An oxygen mask is affixed to his face, filling with fog at his exhales. The doctors had secured down his limbs, however, and his body was far too sore to move. Suppressants for chakra was still being pumped into him, mixed with painkillers that make his head swim. But it was supposed to thin it out to ensure a good flow. The heart monitor is beeping with a steady rhythm, filling the silence with intermittent blips.

It had been nearly four days since the venom arrived in Konoha, and an antidote was crafted. After its administration, he'd been taken out of the coma, but still had no indication of waking up. A day later, his internal hemorrhaging showed signs of stopping, and they were staunched. On the second day, the casts on his limbs came off. On the third day, they had repaired his stomach enough to give him liquid nutrient, and taken him off the ventilator. He'd woken up about two hours ago, and there had been some fuss as his eyes were still taped down. He'd scared the nurse with his struggling.

It hurt to breathe, and his body's weak feeling is unbearably palpable. It took an effort to even shift his hand. Not just because it was tied down.

But he was alive.

"... You doing ok?"

Minato walks in, smiling slightly as he sidles to the bedside of his student. Kakashi just looks at his general direction, not bothering to crane his posture.

"It'll be back to missions for you soon before you know it."

"... Yeah."

Minato's face remains a soft smile. He had worried that Kakashi wouldn't pull through. He knew, after all, the scarred state his heart was in. Surely, it was a near miracle the venom hadn't finished him off. Unless the snake was lying, of course.

"I think I saw then, sensei."

"Hm? Who?"

"...The people my father saved."

"..."

"And Obito and Rin."

"... Kakashi..."

"They wouldn't look at me, though."

"... Maybe they didn't want to see you there."

"...Maybe. But, I won't know."

Minato sighs and gently murmurs, looking away slightly, "Kakashi, do you still have that death wish..."

Kakashi does not answer. The beeping monitor fills their dense silence.

"... I know you want them to be here. I want that too. But I also don't want you gone. I'm telling you this... not only as a teacher but as a fellow ninja, because you're not a kid anymore."

"... I don't think I'll ever be over it, sensei..." Kakashi mutters quietly, "I'm weak..."

"Kakashi, you are the good kid among all the heartless ones in Anbu... You are not weak. And you need to forgive yourself for feeling that way."

Kakashi doesn't answer immediately. If he did, he might choke a bit.

"... I always hated them, you know. Those people... my old man saved them, and they just turned their backs on him."

"...I know."

"But I don't think he ever did. I never got that. Even when he killed himself, I was always thinking why he didn't just kill them instead. I fucking hated them..."

He pauses with a sigh.

"But I... saved them."

"... Did you?"

"... Yeah. I couldn't... just leave them."

"... Just like I know you didn't want to leave Rin and Obito," Minato ruffles that silvery hair gently.

"Sensei..."

"You don't have to be over them, Kakashi. No one has to get over something like that. But don't dig at those scars to reopen them. You need to heal eventually... and look forward."

_I'll be your eye... and together, we'll face the future together._

"...Do I … even deserve that..."

Minato shakes his head likely, "Don't ask me, Kakashi. Ask yourself. You can't think yourself unworthy and have someone else give you chances."

He pulls back his hand. Kakashi stares off a bit at the ceiling, likely in thought.

"Same as how I don't expect you to be over them, I don't expect you to be all better. But I know you'll get better."

"...Why?"

"Just a hunch... because I'm your teacher," Minato gives a dazzling, goofy grin.

Kakashi gives a slight scoff and resists rolling his eyes.

"There's that ol' Kakashi snark...!"

Minato chuckles. He can't tell if Kakashi is smiling, but he sure looks unamused, which is a hell lot better than down and depressed. It's that face he wore a lot when snubbing Obito. He scratches his head and waves slightly as he goes to leave.

"You're worthy, Kakashi."

Kakashi's eye widens slightly.

"Oh, and before I forget. One of your Anbu buddies left something for you on the bed stand!"

"... Great." Sarcasm.

Minato chuckles and steps out. The door closes and he is gone, leaving Kakashi alone. The young man sighs and closes his eyes. It was likely he'll be back to missions tomorrow. He didn't know that what was on the bed stand was a new Anbu mask to replace the one he broke.

With a great weight off his shoulders, Minato walks a more leisurely pace. Today was when he's supposed to be doing more paperwork under the Third. Being hokage... that was already a daunting thought on top of all his other missions.

It's true. Kakashi won't be better immediately like this. But the fact that he's still here, meant he hadn't given up… hearts and souls can heal if given the chance. And knowing Kakashi… he'll go the right way. His heart hadn't given up. His body showed it. Otherwise, he would've been dead back at the checkpoint maybe. And that he had forgiven those people... he remembers, but he can forge ahead.

Maybe the snake was lying, maybe it wasn't. Minato wanted to believe it was the truth.

Kakashi lived because he had the will to.


End file.
